


Letters

by Carpe_History



Series: Unwritten Plot Outlines [3]
Category: Leviathan - Scott Westerfeld
Genre: Alternate Universe - Cinderella Fusion, F/M, and a war AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:55:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28439490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carpe_History/pseuds/Carpe_History
Summary: Those with royal blood can't go to war. They have generals for that. Prince Aleksander of Hohenberg has been forbidden to go to war. Women can't go to war. They are too soft, apparently. Deryn Sharp had been forbidden to go to war.So of course Alek and Dylan meet up in a war camp and spend three years fighting side by side, each knowing the other has secrets. when the war was over, they go back to the capital and try to live their lives. they stay in contact with each other through letters.that works of course until Alek needs a woman to be his bride before he can take the throne.
Relationships: Aleksander of Hohenberg/Deryn Sharp
Series: Unwritten Plot Outlines [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1859494
Kudos: 4





	Letters

**Author's Note:**

> look so I had this started WAY back before Goliath came out. it's literally launched in my WIPs for ... *squints at Goliath's release date* ... since 2011. Ok wow. It's nearly 2021. nearly a decade. 
> 
> I will never write this one out. so into the unwritten plot outlines series, it goes!
> 
> So I slapped it into an editor, added some shit that filled a few plot holes, and here it is! it's probably very OOC and it's been years since I wrote "Why" so be kind. 
> 
> the short summary that was on top of my notes for this since the start was:  
> Alek/Deryn Cinderella Some serious fantasy with a Cinderella twist!!   
> enjoy?

Those with royal blood can't go to war. They have generals for that. Prince Aleksander of Hohenberg (16) has been forbidden to go to war. He's the crown prince, and he is the sole heir. He's got a regent in Count Volger. His parents are killed at the start of the war, and he would like to fight the people who did it. he is denied, despite his regent's agreement. 

However, Alek Ferdinand, a talented storm walker pilot, hasn't been banned. Alek's regent says he can go. That the prince can stay shut-in in grief. Alek fights the enemy who endangers his country, and there he meets a boy in the infantry who wants to fly. 

Here, he's not a prince but a commoner, and Alek finds that hard to do. He keeps on messing up.

Women can't go to war. They are too soft, apparently. Deryn Sharp (15) had been forbidden to go to war. She wants to escape her home. Her mother is bedridden, and her father's sisters are controlling. And have been since they were left in charge of her. They have two of her cousins with them, and no one really likes Deryn much - other than her mum.

Her father and brother are both out fighting too - having been drafted from their ballooning business. But, with help from her mom, Dylan Sharp, a boy who dreams of flying above the clouds, can. 

She goes to fight and tries to keep her secret safe. She meets a storm walker pilot whose mannerisms are just too formal. 

So they meet at the capital's training base. They stayed together through their basic training, training for their jobs, and assignment to the front. Everyone in their unit calls them Alek-and-Dylan. They rarely separate, and when it comes to assignments, they always go together. 

Their first battle is terrifying. 

When Alek and Dylan become friends, they discover each other's secrets in battle. That Dylan is a girl and that Alek is a royal. They both agree to never tell each other their real names until the war is over. 

They stay together for three years, never allowing the feelings that develop to get in the way of not being discovered. 

They talk about the future. Alek kept her alive once she found out her father died in battle. Then Deryn's brother gets to go home, and she doesn't, she cries, but it's a relief. As is knowing that he reopened their business and traveled to grow it, even during a war. Alek does his best to explain how hard it is to hide the fact he was making decisions about the country from his tiny two-person tent when even the regent's power wasn't enough. He shares that his parents have died at the start of the war. 

Alek had great ideas about getting better support for innovations for a balloon business, and Deryn had the best suggestions for economics, even in wartime. They supported each other through the war, the eventual promotions, and the injuries. They changed and grew.

And they were totally in love with each other, but never said. Not that half the unit wasn't aware of  _ something  _ that was going on between Alek-and-Dylan. No one asked either. 

Then the war is over. They are on the train back to the capital, where Deryn's (18) family has a small ballooning shop, and Alek (19) has his home castle. 

As they disembark, they tell each other their real names. 

Then they separate. 

Both know that they can't see each other now the war is over. The mere idea kills them both on the inside but, that's the reality they both knew. For a while, they can't see each other. Deryn has to step back into life as a woman, and Alek has to stop being a recluse and be a prince again. 

Both have trouble adjusting. 

Deryn is now forced into dresses and moved into the kitchen and other female activities by her aunts because her mother is ill. Her brother is always at the balloon shop and tries to get the aunts to let up, but even he can't get the aunts to stop. 

One aunt is old, cruel, and cold. She is the mother of the two cruel cousins. The other is young, meek, and unmarried with no children. She just listens to whatever the other aunt says. But she tries to help Deryn adjust to being a girl again. She is the kinder of the two aunts. Both of the aunts live with them. 

None of them - even her brother he; got to go home two years before she did - get the whole, unable to leave the battlefield behind the thing and how she always patroles the home and the shop in evenings or early mornings. Nor do they get why she flinches when the ceremonial parades come through with their cannons. 

Her aunts refuse to let her near the balloons; that is the  _ worst.  _ She misses Alek and writes to him daily. Now that she knows he's the prince, she can be a little more open about her advice. 

Alek writes back near daily. He hates the parades. He works with the generals to keep the peace and only really trusts three of the twenty he's got because he served under nearly ten of them. The three he trusts were good, capable, and cared. The others were not all of these things. 

One of those three keeps on staring at him like he's trying to place Alek's face. That amuses the shit out of Deryn when he tells her. Volger - his regret - doesn't seem to mind working around the changes Alek went through since leaving. Alek has to know the guard rotations and quickly ends the whole cannons being fired after the first parade thing. (he flinched, and half the army did too.) 

His letters to Deryn were the only thing that kept him going for the first year as they both stepped into their 'normal' lives. 

Of course, now that he's back, Aleksander is forced to choose a bride. He asks Count Volger to help him avoid that duty for as long as possible because he wants to learn more about the court laws. Volger agrees; the man knows everything and sees what Alek is writing to Deryn. (he can put two and two together.). His council is willing to wait, but they would prefer him to at least try. 

Deryn and Aleksander send letters to each other and try to keep each other sane in a world not entirely of their choosing that also no longer fits them. They even never admit to their families who they are writing to. 

Two years pass. They haven't seen each other since they separated ways at the end of the war despite living in the same city. They also exchange so many letters. 

Alek, now three months from turning 21 and marrying age, is required by  _ law  _ to choose a bride. Usually, a prince would have some princess that he was already thinking about. 

Alek really only wants Deryn, not any of the other women. On a prince's 21 birthday, it would also either be his wedding or an engagement party. His reagent must keep with the tradition. This is the only way he can take the throne. Without a partner, he's considered (culturally and by convention) too much of a loose cannon. 

Volger – the regent - throw him a Ball so that he can choose a bride; he's unhappy about this whole extravagance, 'but that's the law Alek.' Inviting all the women in the capitol to try to be the new bride of the prince. 

Alek hates it all, but by the look that Volger gave him, he knew that asking for Deryn's hand had to be done at the ball or not at all. So Alek wrote a letter. In this letter, he explained that Volger lost the argument with the council, referenced the issues he had written about before, and begged Deryn to marry him, and they could face the world together at least. He promised to fistfight the first councilor that makes demands she wears a skirt for official events.

Deryn (20) has been fighting for freedom from her aunts for quite some time. In the two years since she got home, her mother recovered but is still weak from the illness that nearly killed her, and her father and brother have been traveling for some time selling balloons. 

Her aunts control a lot of Deryn's life now, and she hates it. She suffers through their lessons and her issues with her cousins simply so they would leave her alone. She should have gone on the trip with her brother, but her aunts stopped her from doing so by bringing up the letters.

Her brother hadn't known about the letters before then and was unhappy to find out she was still talking to one person in her old unit.

The aunts think she found a poor soldier boy who will take their 'fortune' if he marries Deryn. Deryn hasn't let them read her letters. She has explained several times that the man she is writing to won't want their ballooning business at all, but the aunts won't listen. 

While her brother is out of town, Deryn lives with her mother, aunts, and two annoying and very self-absorbed cousins. 

Alek's letter arrives at the same time as the announcement that a ball will be had. Deryn isn't happy at all to hear about the ball. Because she knows that Alek hates the idea of getting married to someone he doesn't know. She doesn't know how to tell Alek that she has spent the last two years learning the manners her aunts pushed on her on the off chance that Alek would ask her to marry him. It's a pipe dream. 

She also knows that she won't be allowed to go because her aunts have placed her on house arrest because of the latest attempt to go to her brother and the letter that arrived that morning. 

Her two annoying cousins are ecstatic about the ball and won't stop talking about it. Deryn isn't happy and says the prince probably isn't either. They don't understand Deryn. They keep trying to tease her about the letters she gets, but they don't know who it's from. 

When the letter does arrive, the cruel aunt gets it first and opens it. Deryn gets very angry and tries to take the letter back but not before the aunts read that Alek wants to marry her. Like all of them, Alek's letter is just signed "Alek," not with any royal titles. 

The aunts get angry after Alek's latest letter and refuse to let Deryn see it. They take the letter from her and burn it. In her fury, Deryn says nothing but that they aren't family. They never were family. Alek's messages aren't signed formally. 

The aunts decide to marry her off to someone that will raise their futures. Deryn does not want to. At all. She'll marry Alek, or she will marry no one. Alek has to marry someone. She just wants it to be her. 

On the day of the Ball, Alek writes one more letter to Deryn saying that he wishes she could attend. She hasn't responded, but he knows from previous letters that the aunts were controlling, and it was not the first time that she wasn't able to send a letter for a while. He's still worried and terrified because what if the answer to his proposal was  _ no?  _ But he tries not to jump to conclusions. And totally does and has to be talked down by Volger. 

Deryn helps dress her cousins while her aunts debate what to do with her. Deryn says she wants to go and will even put on a dress and not complain while doing so. She wants to see Alek for the first time in years. The aunts say she should go, but the other says no, and the cousins don't want her. 

They leave her with her mother. Her mother, who smiles at her the moment they leave and helps her into a dress. It's beautiful, and Deryn hates it, but she'll wear anything to see Alek again. Her mother says that she always wanted to do this with her, but Deryn was far into pants. She also says, goes get the royal you've been writing to. He's your partner, right? Turns out the mother is far more observant than her sisters in law. 

She tells Deryn that her aunts will not like it if she isn't at home and to be home at midnight. Deryn says she will, and then she is off to the ball. 

Alek is bored out of his mind and worried for Deryn. He has danced with so many young women that he lost count at about one hundred, including two girls who held a resemblance to Deryn. But only a superficial one. But none of them have been  _ her.  _

Then the final guest enters the room. She was announced as Miss Ferdinand. And she had Alek's attention.

The entire room falls silent. Deryn wasn't expecting to get such an entrance. So, she is very nervous. She used Alek's false name to give him an idea of who she might be. It works. 

Alek breaks away from the girl he is dancing with (One of Deryn's cousins) to greet her. He fought in a war with Deryn. He will recognize her anywhere and in anything. 

He then sweeps her into a waltz letting the room fade away. Deryn is having a grand time. They talk. Deryn tells him that she has to leave early because her aunts didn't want her here. Alek agrees, and they talk about everything but Alek's central question. 

They dance the entire night. The Mean Aunt wants the girl in the prince's arms gone; The kinder aunt thinks they are a beautiful couple. The cousins hate her on the spot. But then they have always disliked Deryn. Alek and Deryn Don't Care.

Before midnight, Alek asks Deryn to marry him. Repeats everything in his letter. Deryn says yes. But also I want to see that fistfight over me in trousers. Alek agrees. 

But then it's midnight. So she runs off and leaves behind a shoe. Alek watches her and laughs and is about to tell Vogler when the rest of the councilors jump to the wrong conclusions about everything and then demand a search for the girl. 

Alek ignores the search to head over to the ballooning shop and attached house that Deryn's Brother works at. He brings Volger. He wants to ask for Deryn's hand in marriage properly. He meets her brother, who just returned home to see Deryn and her mother. Her brother, dispute not knowing about the letters, still puts it all together. 

He lets Alek in. it's like two in the morning. 

Deryn is there at the shop, having gone there when she heard brother was home. As are the Aunts. The aunts are furious. 

Her aunts figured out that she is the one who danced with the prince by the way Deryn moved. (The princess who danced had a very distinctive walk.) They yell at Deryn to ruin the cousins' chances and explain that she needs to be punished and other things. Deryn's brother is just looking bemused, and Deryn is getting angrier. 

Just as Deryn starts to go to town on her aunts, Alek walks in and stuns them all to silence. Except for Deryn. Who asks what took him so long to get here. Alek explains that he had to get the councilors on a goose chase first. 

The cousins try to jump him because they want to be his fiance, but Deryn stops them. Alek tells them that he is here for Deryn. Deryn smiles and says to her family that this is Alek. The storm walker pilot. And he is also Aleksander. The Prince. One of the aunts faints, and the cousins all break out in tears. 

Alek then asks Deryn's brother for her hand in marriage. Deryn's brother says it's up to her. Alek smiles, hoping that would be the answer. Deryn says yes again before Alek can even ask properly. 

Vulgar just sighs. 

They marry and it happily ever after. 

In which happily ever after actually means adventures, Dr. Barlow, a loris, and another war to end, but that's an entirely another story!

-

_ Alek was horrible at this. He kept wanting the men around him to bow or do something that showed that they recognized his royal rank but then remembering that he DIDN'T have royal status. He was just a lowly storm walker pilot and nothing more.  _

_ Dylan, on the other hand, was great at this. So, Alek started following what he did. Learning how to be a common boy.  _

_ Dylan, of course, noticed.  _

_ He just laughed at Alek. His laugh was a little too high to be usual.  _

-

_ Alek had grabbed Dylan around the chest to drag her out of the wreckage of the walker. He felt what Dylan had kept wrapped. Alek was naïve, not an idiot. That was not a guy's chest he was grabbing. _

_ He didn't let go of her. They needed to move. _

_ "you're a girl?!" Alek was frustrated on top of being scared. It was the first major battle with the enemy. His best friend was injured. A deep cut on her leg from the broken metal of the walker they were in. "you know what? Never mind. We need to stop the blood flow."  _

_ "Yeah. That would be best." Dylan gasped out, leaning on the broken storm walker to help pull herself out. The thankful expression on her face didn't hide her wince of pain when she spoke.  _

_ Alek waited until they were far enough away to treat the wound.  _

_ Then he would deal with the fact that his best friend was a girl with a better shot than him. Then deal with the fact that he never, ever, wanted her to leave.  _

_ She had to live for that to happen.  _

_ - _

_ "Shit. that's a flipping royal." Dylan said, looking over the field to see the enemy's encampment with a binocular they had managed to rescue from the broken walker. "Probably a count."  _

_ "What?" Alek said, wincing as he spotted more blood on her bandages. It didn't stop him from taking the offered binoculars and looking at the camp that blocked their way back to their home.  _

_ Dylan wasn't wrong, per se. "That's not a count. That's a prince's retinue. Probably not the prince - Summerset by the looks of the banner - but someone high up."  _

_ "You can recognize banners? And the staff of royalty? Shit, Alek, how high are you in society?"  _

_ Alek blinked took his gaze away from the encampment to stare at Dylan. Then back at encampment. "High enough."  _

_ Dylan shook her head. "How about you  _ don't _ tell me yours, and I  _ don't  _ tell you mine?"  _

_ It was a long moment before Alek realized she was right. "If we get out of here. If we survive this whole thing and make it back home, in the capitol, I want to know."  _

_ "Deal."  _

-

_ "Dylan. So this is-" Alek started to say as they reached the end of the alleyway.  _

_ "Deryn." The woman interrupted, "My name's Deryn." Deryn refused to look at the storm walker pilot's face. Her face turned slightly red. "I just wanted you to know."  _

_ Alek smiled. "Deryn. It fits." He glanced around the dark alleyway they stood in. He then performed a formal bow one that is from a single male to a single female. "And I am Prince Aleksander of Hohenberg."  _

_ Deryn laughed unchanged by the revelation. "I knew it!"  _

_ How Alek was going to live without her was impossible. "I'll write to you. Please write back?"  _

_ Deryn nodded. "Always, Alek. Prince or no"  _

-

_ "Momma! Are you sure? This is your good dress!" Deryn knew this. She hadn't been allowed even to touch the dress as a child. It was beautiful and dark blue and the exact color as her infantry uniform.  _

_ "Deryn. I never got to dress you up as a child. You liked wearing pants too much. And now that you want to go to a ball of all things... Yes, I am sure. It's already done to your size. I've been working on it. I'm too old to wear it, but it's just the right age for you."  _

_ Deryn smiled. They might not always agree, especially about things like dresses, but her Momma loved her, and that was good enough for her.  _

_ "Let me do your hair. With it down, it will be hard to recognize you!" Deryn's mother helped her get ready. And called a carriage. And as she shut the door, she told Deryn one last thing.  _

_ "Don't tell your aunts that you are there. So be home by midnight. Your aunts would be angry if you left. But have fun. And do say hello to that pilot you are always talking about." Her mother said.  _

_ Deryn smiled. "I will, momma."  _

-

_ "Well, as I asked her to marry me, I would hope she won't mind me being here," Alek said, stepping into the back room of the shop where Deryn's family all stood.  _

_ "The prince!?" a female voice gasped. _

_ The four women in the corner had to be Dryden's aunts and cousins. Alek vaguely recognized one of them as the girl he had been dancing with when Deryn had entered the ballroom. Another woman was sitting at a table, her mother, Alek, presumed.  _

_ And there was Deryn. Staring at him like he was the sun and he was late.  _

_ "What took you so long, Alek?"  _

_ "Sorry, Deryn, I had to send my council on a goose chase." which caused Deryn to laugh.  _

_ Alek bowed to the room, "good morning to you all. It is indeed after midnight."  _

_ "Mother, This is Alek. He's who I've been writing to. He's my partner from the storm walker unit. We're… "Deryn trailed off, unsure how to describe them.  _

_ They've always surpassed labels, really, but Alek hoped to make at least one thing clear. he smiled at her brightly and got a returned look.  _

_ "Engaged, if your family will let it occur?" Alek said with a side look at the only male in the room, Deryn's brother. Based on her letters, her mother and the brother's opinions were the only ones that Deryn cared for. _

_ "If my sister said yes, then you have your answer." the man said.  _

_ The sheer relief that swamped Alek was real. As was the smirking grin, full of confidence and happiness, that Deryn sent him.  _

_ Engaged.  _

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on Tumblr and Twitter at Carpe_History, if you want to yell at me for Yuuri on ice, star trek, Check Please!, general NHL, and Figure skating madness. I will post things into this unwritten plot series occasionally. I tend to write novel-length things so this is rather short.


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